The closest early MTV got to edgy and punk was the Clash video for "Rock The Casbah". Lots of quasi soft-porn in the form of videos for hair metal bands. For suburban/small-town parents raised in the 50s, that WAS edgy, but nothing at all like what was happening at CBGB, Studio 54 or the St Marks' Baths on a saturday night in 1983.
Agreed, I'm ranting against Kern mainly because his bio and approach is all about wanting credit for having lived "roughly," which I find annoying, especially given his minuscule talent. About his filmmaking, he says:
"The characters in my films shot up drugs, pierced or cut themselves, beat each other up, sucked each other off, killed their parents, raped youngsters, etc. over harsh soundtracks produced by my friend Jim Thirlwell. The most popular of these films, FINGERED, was also the most controversial. At screening after screening, both in the States and abroad, I was routinely booed off the stage, attacked or shut down. Yet, the first time Lydia (the star and instigator of this movie) and I sat down to watch the finished product, she looked at me and said "This isn't hard enough". To me, making these films was like taking a big, fat, smelly dump then standing back and watching people marvel over it."
Well, so what? The French in the early 19th century were already gung-ho about
épater le bourgeois, scaring off the middle-class out of their comfort, but what else?
Even if Nan Goldin irritates me at times, she's also a gifted artist and has made some poignant work that engages with the rough lives of people she was documenting. She's still making people uncomfortable now, as evidenced by the Elton John kerfuffle. I don't think that adds a lot to her value anyway, but if art is a pissing contest like Mr Kern purports, then she's pissing further away without the advantage of a penile tube!
